Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Dirk Cresswell

Overview
Dirk Cresswell worked in the Goblin Liaison Office of the Ministry of Magic, eventually becoming head of the department.

Half-Blood Prince
While Albus Dumbledore is in the process of recruiting Horace Slughorn at the beginning of the book, he leaves Slughorn and Harry together. The conversation turns to Harry's mother, Lily Potter, and Slughorn mentions that Dirk had been in the year after Lily. Now Head of the Goblin Liaison office, Dirk has been keeping him up to date on events at Gringotts.

Deathly Hallows
When Harry, Ron, and Hermione are making their way through the Ministry in their search for the locket Horcrux, Harry is disguised as one Albert Runcorn, evidently a higher-up in the Ministry. A "bushily-whiskered man" hints that he knows Runcorn had betrayed Dirk Cresswell, evidently losing him his job, and tries to get Runcorn's backing for his plan to be next in line for the Goblin Liaison position. Later in that same episode, Harry, still disguised as Runcorn, shares an elevator with Arthur Weasley, who says he knows that Runcorn had more than a little to do with Creswell's being fired, and warns him to watch his step. Finally, in the escape from the Ministry, Harry gets the Ministry workers to stop sealing exit fireplaces by threatening the wizard in charge with having his ancestry investigated like Dirk Creswell's was.

Later, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are moving from campsite to campsite through the English countryside, another group of refugees briefly and unknowingly camps beside them. This other group, comprised of Dirk Creswell, Ted Tonks, Dean Thomas, and the Goblins Griphook and Gornuk, reveals that a group of students at Hogwarts had tried to steal the sword of Gryffindor from the Headmaster's office. The students had been punished, and the sword had been transferred to a safe at Gringotts. The goblins also revealed that the sword in Gringotts was a fake, a very good fake but not Goblin-made.

Later, listening to the underground wireless broadcast, Harry, Ron, and Hermione hear that Ted Tonks, Dirk Cresswell, and Gornuk have been killed.

Analysis
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, while they are waiting in the campsite for the Quidditch World Cup to begin, Arthur Weasley identifies the various Ministry members as they go by. He identifies one Cuthbert Mockridge as the Head of the Goblin Liaison Office. Comments between Dumbledore and Slughorn lead us to believe that Slughorn has been out of circulation since the re-appearance of the Death Eaters at the end of Harry's fifth year; but Slughorn identifies Dirk as head of the Goblin Liaison department. Thus, Dirk's promotion must have happened before Slughorn went into hiding, between September of Harry's fourth year, and June of his fifth year. It is possible that Cuthbert was forced out as a result of Ludovic Bagman's dealings with the Goblins during Harry's fourth year.